Garrett Alberson won the 2022 Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series Rookie of the Year award. However, it would take him a total of three seasons to finally earn his first feature victory. Alberson shared what he felt made the winning difference.
Change in Direction for Garrett Alberson
Alberson and his team, Roberts Motorsports, decided to make a big change midway through the 2023 season. They switched to Longhorn Chassis.
“Our team decided to go in a different direction,” Alberson, of Las Cruces, New Mexico, said. “We could see the direction late model racing was going.”
Alberson added that big-league late model racing is becoming “crazy competitive,” with lap times closer than ever and driving getting more aggressive.
“Cars, parts, and motors are more readily available in the past five years,” said Alberson. “People know what equipment they need to have to be competitive.”
Having the essentials is just the beginning.
“Motors, shocks and chassis—info to get them set up is readily available on the internet now,” Alberson said. “It’s closed the gap a lot, making it tougher to win. It’s harder than ever to keep secrets. There is a lot more info sharing. A driver and team have to come up with a creative way in making the car work for the driver.”
Much of that information comes directly from the chassis builder. The more customers a chassis builder has, the more data it has, giving a bigger advantage to the bigger companies.
“The chassis companies changed their business models in the past few years,” said Alberson. “They are updating their customers more often, spreading info from the teams that use their product.”
One Size Does Not Fit All
A trip to Longhorn Chassis in North Carolina last winter opened Alberson’s eyes to what’s going on in dirt late model racing.
“I saw different teams who had different approaches to making the chassis work for them,” Alberson said. “They had the same information, but they were not doing exactly the same thing as each other. I realized I had to make my own path to win. The chassis builders can help you a lot — to a certain extent — but they are not in your trailer or on the track you are on.”
With the level of competition in the upper echelons of dirt late model racing, it requires the entire package.
“You have to put all the pieces together in the right order on any given night,” said Alberson. “You have to hit the right combination — your springs, shocks, and loads have to be right for the track condition.”
All of that came together last Friday at Port Royal Speedway in Pennsylvania. There, the level of competition was evident by the margin of victory. Garrett Alberson topped Devin Moran by just .009 seconds.
“Did winning my first Lucas feature change the way I look at things?” said Alberson. “I feel like the exact same guy as I was before. Seeing for myself that I can get the job done, though, is a huge personal accomplishment and confidence booster.”
Mike Adaskaveg has written hundreds of stories since the website’s inception. This year marks his 54th year of covering auto racing. Adaskaveg got his start working for track photographer Lloyd Burnham at Connecticut’s Stafford Motor Speedway in 1970. Since then, he’s been a columnist, writer, and photographer, in racing and in mainstream media, for several outlets, including the Journal Inquirer, Boston Herald, Stock Car Racing, and Speedway Illustrated. Among Adaskaveg’s many awards are the 1992 Eastern Motorsport Press Association (EMPA) Ace Lane Photographer of the Year and the 2019 National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) George Cunningham Writer of the Year.
Photographers
The Outside Groove contributor from Macungie, Pennsylvania, has covered the sport since 2012. Sabo serves as the official track photographer of Grandview Speedway in Bechtelsville, Pennsylvania. Photography is a family ordeal for Sabo. He shoots with his daughter, Abby, at Shellhammer Dirt Track in Shoemakersville, Pennsylvania. At Grandview and other venues Sabo travels to, he and his father, Stephen “Poppa Pepper” Sabo Sr., capture the night’s action with their cameras.
